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Sermon: The Rev. DCN. Donna Lockhart
Sermon: The Second Sunday After pentecost
The Rev. Dcn. Donna Lockhart
Luke 18: 26-39
June 19, 2022
Proclaiming the Goodness of God
When first considering what to speak about today, my prayers led me to speak to you all about God’s healing grace in my personal life. I was going to share with you my families background of alcoholism, and how God lifted me from the depth of this disease into the healing spaces of recovery. But after the violent events that unfolded in just this past week and month, not to mention years gone by, I was led to share a different story. I don’t pretend to understand what compels a person to walk into a grade school and kill 19 children and two teachers, or a gunman to walk into the middle of a church food and fellowship gathering at one of our sister churches and pull out a gun and begin shooting people, killing three. But what I do know is the struggle of dealing with a system that is so broken that my own child almost died in my arms because we couldn’t get him the help he needed; a system that segregates, discriminates, and holds the almighty dollar as more important than precious human life. The following story is an abridged version of my family’s journey and desperate attempt to save our oldest son, Evan. And it is with Evan’s permission I offer this story to you as a sign of hope and healing and the true goodness of God in our lives, even when we are faced with a system that is so desperately broken.
About 16 years ago, Evan began shown signs of mental illness. I received a phone call from his counselor who had explained that Evan had hurt himself by taking a rubber eraser and rubbing it so hard on his left arm that he began to bleed. I was horrified! I had never heard of such a thing. This erasing eventually led to cutting and this cutting led to countless trips to, and endless hours spent in the emergency room. Our visits became so frequent, that the staff knew us all by name. Some were kind and compassionate, but others clearly were questioning not only what was wrong with Evan, but what was wrong with his parents – why we couldn’t stop what Evan was doing.
We had enlisted the help of psychiatrists, therapist, and behavioral specialists in an attempt to save our child. As Evan’s illness grew more severe, the revolving door of inpatient hospital stays began. The stays at these hospitals may have proved successful if Evan had been allowed to stay long enough to be diagnosed and stabilized on the proper medication (which often takes months, not days allowed by the insurance companies). Insurance started by paying 80% of a three day stay and as the stays became longer, the percentage that insurance covered decreased until insurance no longer covered the cost of Evan’s care. And the cost of medication is a whole sermon in and of itself because the prescribed drugs meant to help, were at times so expensive, they became unattainable.
We were desperate to help our oldest son so as time went on, we paid out of pocket for much of his care. And we were the privileged ones because we had a home that we could take a second mortgage on, but still, this wasn’t enough. Evan had been put in the vicious cycle of a broken system; a for profit medical and mental health system that values dollars over people. As our money was running out, our desperation grew. The decline of a beautiful loving soul was happening right before our eyes, and we were at a loss as to what to do. Our son was dying, a slow and painful death, and along with him, so was our family.
Again, our privilege came shining through when my brother-in-law connected us with a person who could get Evan into a system that would provide all of the care he needed; the insurance, the doctors, the social workers, medication, and disability. It was within this system that we met the doctor that would save Evan’s life and our family. Dr. Smith (as we will refer to him here) immediately took the bull by the horns and set Evan on the road to healing. If Evan was able to comply to the treatment plan, he could remain out of the hospital. But if there was one more life-threatening event, Evan would be committed. That life threatening event came one September afternoon when my then, 19-year-old son almost died in my arms from an overdose of an over-the-counter cough medicine. My worse fear was coming true. It was at this point that Dr. Smith committed Evan, and a year in Walter Reuther state hospital was to follow. It was the time and effort of a whole team of medical and mental health professionals that gave Evan his life back, and restored Evan to the loving arms of his family.
I share this story with you to shed light on a system in our society that is broken and leaves our siblings as lost and alone as the Gerasene man was, in today’s Gospel story.
In today’s Gospel we read about a man possessed by demons. Not just one demon but a legion of demons. In ancient Rome, a legion consisted of as many as 6,000 men. So, when the demon told Jesus that his name was legion, this was an indication that the man was possessed by many demons. This poor soul lived among the tombs and though shackled, the strength of the demons would break those shackles and drive him into the wilderness, naked and alone, accept for the demons that plagued every second of his existence, day and night.
According to Jewish tradition, the man was considered to be unclean because he had been forced to live in the tombs, among the dead. This man was an outcast from society because the demons within him had taken complete control. He was discarded and thrown away. People feared him. They feared his uncleanliness. Perhaps they feared that they too would be possessed, taken over by demons, so they cast him out and he was left to fend for himself.
Because of his misdiagnosed and untreated mental illness, Evan, like this demon possessed man, was being cast out by society because he didn’t fit into what society deemed to be the norm. Like the Gerasene man, Evan was being thrown away and regarded as unworthy of help, and we were left to fend for ourselves in a broken system that caterers to those considered worthy of healing because of their ability to pay. Our nakedness shown through in our inability to pay for care and in our complete and utter disbelief in a for-profit-system that punished us and Evan for this inability by not providing Evan with the lifesaving care he needed. The people in today’s Gospel story were fearful of the possessed man, just as the people of today were fearful of Evan.
When I think of Evan’s story and journey towards wellness, I can’t help but think of Jesus’ commissioning of the healed Gerasene man to go forth and proclaim how much God had done for him. And, as we read,
“The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So, he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.”
I stand here today and tell you; my family and I are among the blessed because it is only through the Grace of God that Evan did not die in my arms that September evening. And because of this, we are called, just like the Gerasene man to share our story and the goodness of God in our lives.
We are all surrounded daily by reports of gun violence, death, violent crime, homelessness, poverty. We drive our cars past the people on the side of the road asking for food and walk by people sleeping on the streets and whose clothes are so tattered they are close to being as naked as the Gerasene man. It is easy for us to dismiss these people as panhandlers, and look at them as being lazy, and maybe some are, but I suggest here today that most are not. Every time I pass a homeless person, I am confronted with the reality of how close we came to our son being amongst them. How many of these people who have been left to fend for themselves are inflicted with untreated mental illness and like Evan, are trying to self-medicate?
It is in this mindset; we enter the endless cycle of blaming the victim. How many of these people, would gladly rejoin society if only given access to the help that they need. I am painfully aware that if Alan and I had not been connected by an outside source to the lifesaving help that our son needed, Evan would be one of the people we pass daily on our streets, in our bus stations, on the side of the freeway, or huddled around the soup kitchens, seeking a meal.
NAMI, which stands for National Association of Mental Illness provides us with some startling and current statistics:• 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year.• 1 in 20 U.S. adults experience serious mental illness each year.• 1 in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year.• 50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24.• Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among people aged 10-34.
The support that is needed for our mentally ill of society is well documented. The statistics of homelessness and mental illness in our country provide a clear picture of the need that exist in our society on a daily basis. And when we look at adults in prison and our youth who have been cast into the juvenile justice system (and I use the term justice lightly!) again, NAMI shares some staggering statistics:
• 20.8% of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. have a serious mental health condition• 37% of adults incarcerated in the state and federal prison system have a diagnosed mental illness• 70% of youth in the juvenile justice system have a diagnosable mental health condition.
“The average state cost for the secure confinement of a young person is now $588 per day, or $214,620 per year, a 44 percent increase from 2014.” And, the cost per adult in prison varies wildly from state to state, ranging anywhere from $14,000 to $70,000 per year. How many parents like Alan and I spend all they have, to the point of certain bankruptcy to fill in the gaps of our broken system? How many parents are not privy to the connections that Alan and I were afforded because of our privilege and as such are traumatized and torn apart as a result of our broken system?
And though this space does not allow me to fully address disparities on other levels such as race, I would be remiss not to mention that Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at nearly 5 times the rate of white Americans and Latinx individuals at a rate of 1.3 times that of their white counterparts. What if we spent even a fraction of the costs on caring for our mentally ill that we do to confine and incarcerate them. What if we poured even half of the yearly cost of over $200,000 being spent on confining our youth into creating a education system of equality for all students and making mental health care accessible to all people, not just those with connections like Alan and I. And how many people could we keep from being confined and incarcerated by offering the equal education and healthcare resources that can restore, heal, uplift families and whole communities.
I don’t have all the answers, in fact I have very few. What I do have is the story of how good God has been in my life, and I am called as a follower of Jesus to proclaim God’s goodness and grace everywhere I go. It is in speaking of the disparities in our systems, by sharing our stories of struggle and triumph despite that broken system, that we take away just a little bit more of it’s power.
The fear caused by the reality of these statistics is so very real. The desperation of families trying to save their loved ones is heart wrenching. The racial segregation that is so prevalent in all of our systems widens the gap of injustice on a daily basis. As repairers of the breach, we are called to share our stories, live into the healing grace of God, and indeed proclaim the goodness of the Lord everywhere we go and to every person we meet. And one way we do this, is by sharing our stories.
I invite us all to consider how we are sharing God’s goodness in our daily lives. And in this sharing, how we are spreading the light and hope of Jesus Christ in this broken world. By refusing to give in and give up, and by looking at our homeless and incarcerated through the lens of this broken system, we are given a clear direction forward. As Jesus told the Gerasene man to go forth and proclaim all that God had done for him, we too are called to do the same. We do have the power within us to change the system and that power is the light and hope of our Lord and Savior – the same lord and savior that is in me, that is in you, and that is in every person, including the mentally ill, the homeless, and the incarcerated. And in closing, the same prayer I was going to share with you at the end of my original sermon, I think still fits what we have spoken about today. Let us pray: The Serenity Prayer; Full VersionGod, grant us the SerenityTo accept the things we cannot change...Courage to change the things we can,And Wisdom to know the difference.Living one day at a time,Enjoying one moment at a time,Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,Not as we would have it.Trusting that He will make all things rightif we surrender to His will.That we may be reasonably happy in this life,And supremely happy with Him forever in the next.Amen. Resources: NAMI https://www.nami.org/mhstats NAMI https://www.nami.org/mhstats Justice Policy Institute: https://justicepolicy.org/research/policy-brief-2020-sticker-shock-the-cost-of-youth-incarceration/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20despite%20more%20than,%24500%2C000%20per%20youth%20per%20year. Interrogating Justice: https://interrogatingjustice.org/prisons/annual-prison-costs-budgets/#:~:text=According%20to%20data%20from%20Vera,%2430%2C000%20per%20incarcerated%20individual%20annually. The Sentencing Project: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons/
Proclaiming the Goodness of God
When first considering what to speak about today, my prayers led me to speak to you all about God’s healing grace in my personal life. I was going to share with you my families background of alcoholism, and how God lifted me from the depth of this disease into the healing spaces of recovery. But after the violent events that unfolded in just this past week and month, not to mention years gone by, I was led to share a different story. I don’t pretend to understand what compels a person to walk into a grade school and kill 19 children and two teachers, or a gunman to walk into the middle of a church food and fellowship gathering at one of our sister churches and pull out a gun and begin shooting people, killing three. But what I do know is the struggle of dealing with a system that is so broken that my own child almost died in my arms because we couldn’t get him the help he needed; a system that segregates, discriminates, and holds the almighty dollar as more important than precious human life. The following story is an abridged version of my family’s journey and desperate attempt to save our oldest son, Evan. And it is with Evan’s permission I offer this story to you as a sign of hope and healing and the true goodness of God in our lives, even when we are faced with a system that is so desperately broken.
About 16 years ago, Evan began shown signs of mental illness. I received a phone call from his counselor who had explained that Evan had hurt himself by taking a rubber eraser and rubbing it so hard on his left arm that he began to bleed. I was horrified! I had never heard of such a thing. This erasing eventually led to cutting and this cutting led to countless trips to, and endless hours spent in the emergency room. Our visits became so frequent, that the staff knew us all by name. Some were kind and compassionate, but others clearly were questioning not only what was wrong with Evan, but what was wrong with his parents – why we couldn’t stop what Evan was doing.
We had enlisted the help of psychiatrists, therapist, and behavioral specialists in an attempt to save our child. As Evan’s illness grew more severe, the revolving door of inpatient hospital stays began. The stays at these hospitals may have proved successful if Evan had been allowed to stay long enough to be diagnosed and stabilized on the proper medication (which often takes months, not days allowed by the insurance companies). Insurance started by paying 80% of a three day stay and as the stays became longer, the percentage that insurance covered decreased until insurance no longer covered the cost of Evan’s care. And the cost of medication is a whole sermon in and of itself because the prescribed drugs meant to help, were at times so expensive, they became unattainable.
We were desperate to help our oldest son so as time went on, we paid out of pocket for much of his care. And we were the privileged ones because we had a home that we could take a second mortgage on, but still, this wasn’t enough. Evan had been put in the vicious cycle of a broken system; a for profit medical and mental health system that values dollars over people. As our money was running out, our desperation grew. The decline of a beautiful loving soul was happening right before our eyes, and we were at a loss as to what to do. Our son was dying, a slow and painful death, and along with him, so was our family.
Again, our privilege came shining through when my brother-in-law connected us with a person who could get Evan into a system that would provide all of the care he needed; the insurance, the doctors, the social workers, medication, and disability. It was within this system that we met the doctor that would save Evan’s life and our family. Dr. Smith (as we will refer to him here) immediately took the bull by the horns and set Evan on the road to healing. If Evan was able to comply to the treatment plan, he could remain out of the hospital. But if there was one more life-threatening event, Evan would be committed. That life threatening event came one September afternoon when my then, 19-year-old son almost died in my arms from an overdose of an over-the-counter cough medicine. My worse fear was coming true. It was at this point that Dr. Smith committed Evan, and a year in Walter Reuther state hospital was to follow. It was the time and effort of a whole team of medical and mental health professionals that gave Evan his life back, and restored Evan to the loving arms of his family.
I share this story with you to shed light on a system in our society that is broken and leaves our siblings as lost and alone as the Gerasene man was, in today’s Gospel story.
In today’s Gospel we read about a man possessed by demons. Not just one demon but a legion of demons. In ancient Rome, a legion consisted of as many as 6,000 men. So, when the demon told Jesus that his name was legion, this was an indication that the man was possessed by many demons. This poor soul lived among the tombs and though shackled, the strength of the demons would break those shackles and drive him into the wilderness, naked and alone, accept for the demons that plagued every second of his existence, day and night.
According to Jewish tradition, the man was considered to be unclean because he had been forced to live in the tombs, among the dead. This man was an outcast from society because the demons within him had taken complete control. He was discarded and thrown away. People feared him. They feared his uncleanliness. Perhaps they feared that they too would be possessed, taken over by demons, so they cast him out and he was left to fend for himself.
Because of his misdiagnosed and untreated mental illness, Evan, like this demon possessed man, was being cast out by society because he didn’t fit into what society deemed to be the norm. Like the Gerasene man, Evan was being thrown away and regarded as unworthy of help, and we were left to fend for ourselves in a broken system that caterers to those considered worthy of healing because of their ability to pay. Our nakedness shown through in our inability to pay for care and in our complete and utter disbelief in a for-profit-system that punished us and Evan for this inability by not providing Evan with the lifesaving care he needed. The people in today’s Gospel story were fearful of the possessed man, just as the people of today were fearful of Evan.
When I think of Evan’s story and journey towards wellness, I can’t help but think of Jesus’ commissioning of the healed Gerasene man to go forth and proclaim how much God had done for him. And, as we read,
“The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So, he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.”
I stand here today and tell you; my family and I are among the blessed because it is only through the Grace of God that Evan did not die in my arms that September evening. And because of this, we are called, just like the Gerasene man to share our story and the goodness of God in our lives.
We are all surrounded daily by reports of gun violence, death, violent crime, homelessness, poverty. We drive our cars past the people on the side of the road asking for food and walk by people sleeping on the streets and whose clothes are so tattered they are close to being as naked as the Gerasene man. It is easy for us to dismiss these people as panhandlers, and look at them as being lazy, and maybe some are, but I suggest here today that most are not. Every time I pass a homeless person, I am confronted with the reality of how close we came to our son being amongst them. How many of these people who have been left to fend for themselves are inflicted with untreated mental illness and like Evan, are trying to self-medicate?
It is in this mindset; we enter the endless cycle of blaming the victim. How many of these people, would gladly rejoin society if only given access to the help that they need. I am painfully aware that if Alan and I had not been connected by an outside source to the lifesaving help that our son needed, Evan would be one of the people we pass daily on our streets, in our bus stations, on the side of the freeway, or huddled around the soup kitchens, seeking a meal.
NAMI, which stands for National Association of Mental Illness provides us with some startling and current statistics:• 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year.• 1 in 20 U.S. adults experience serious mental illness each year.• 1 in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year.• 50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24.• Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among people aged 10-34.
The support that is needed for our mentally ill of society is well documented. The statistics of homelessness and mental illness in our country provide a clear picture of the need that exist in our society on a daily basis. And when we look at adults in prison and our youth who have been cast into the juvenile justice system (and I use the term justice lightly!) again, NAMI shares some staggering statistics:
• 20.8% of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. have a serious mental health condition• 37% of adults incarcerated in the state and federal prison system have a diagnosed mental illness• 70% of youth in the juvenile justice system have a diagnosable mental health condition.
“The average state cost for the secure confinement of a young person is now $588 per day, or $214,620 per year, a 44 percent increase from 2014.” And, the cost per adult in prison varies wildly from state to state, ranging anywhere from $14,000 to $70,000 per year. How many parents like Alan and I spend all they have, to the point of certain bankruptcy to fill in the gaps of our broken system? How many parents are not privy to the connections that Alan and I were afforded because of our privilege and as such are traumatized and torn apart as a result of our broken system?
And though this space does not allow me to fully address disparities on other levels such as race, I would be remiss not to mention that Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at nearly 5 times the rate of white Americans and Latinx individuals at a rate of 1.3 times that of their white counterparts. What if we spent even a fraction of the costs on caring for our mentally ill that we do to confine and incarcerate them. What if we poured even half of the yearly cost of over $200,000 being spent on confining our youth into creating a education system of equality for all students and making mental health care accessible to all people, not just those with connections like Alan and I. And how many people could we keep from being confined and incarcerated by offering the equal education and healthcare resources that can restore, heal, uplift families and whole communities.
I don’t have all the answers, in fact I have very few. What I do have is the story of how good God has been in my life, and I am called as a follower of Jesus to proclaim God’s goodness and grace everywhere I go. It is in speaking of the disparities in our systems, by sharing our stories of struggle and triumph despite that broken system, that we take away just a little bit more of it’s power.
The fear caused by the reality of these statistics is so very real. The desperation of families trying to save their loved ones is heart wrenching. The racial segregation that is so prevalent in all of our systems widens the gap of injustice on a daily basis. As repairers of the breach, we are called to share our stories, live into the healing grace of God, and indeed proclaim the goodness of the Lord everywhere we go and to every person we meet. And one way we do this, is by sharing our stories.
I invite us all to consider how we are sharing God’s goodness in our daily lives. And in this sharing, how we are spreading the light and hope of Jesus Christ in this broken world. By refusing to give in and give up, and by looking at our homeless and incarcerated through the lens of this broken system, we are given a clear direction forward. As Jesus told the Gerasene man to go forth and proclaim all that God had done for him, we too are called to do the same. We do have the power within us to change the system and that power is the light and hope of our Lord and Savior – the same lord and savior that is in me, that is in you, and that is in every person, including the mentally ill, the homeless, and the incarcerated. And in closing, the same prayer I was going to share with you at the end of my original sermon, I think still fits what we have spoken about today. Let us pray: The Serenity Prayer; Full VersionGod, grant us the SerenityTo accept the things we cannot change...Courage to change the things we can,And Wisdom to know the difference.Living one day at a time,Enjoying one moment at a time,Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,Not as we would have it.Trusting that He will make all things rightif we surrender to His will.That we may be reasonably happy in this life,And supremely happy with Him forever in the next.Amen. Resources: NAMI https://www.nami.org/mhstats NAMI https://www.nami.org/mhstats Justice Policy Institute: https://justicepolicy.org/research/policy-brief-2020-sticker-shock-the-cost-of-youth-incarceration/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20despite%20more%20than,%24500%2C000%20per%20youth%20per%20year. Interrogating Justice: https://interrogatingjustice.org/prisons/annual-prison-costs-budgets/#:~:text=According%20to%20data%20from%20Vera,%2430%2C000%20per%20incarcerated%20individual%20annually. The Sentencing Project: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons/